http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ ... -apnewyork

Life in prison for MS-13 gang member on Long Island


January 4, 2007, 3:44 PM EST

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) _ A member of the MS-13 street gang, convicted of conspiring to murder a fellow gang member suspected of being a police informant, was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole.

Leonel Mejia, 22, of Uniondale, was convicted last April of conspiracy, murder and weapon charges relating to the 2003 murder of 19-year-old Edgardo Sanchez in North Massapequa.

Prosecutors said Sanchez was killed after Mejia and fellow gang members discovered that Sanchez had provided the Nassau County Police Department with information leading to the arrests of six MS-13 members in 2003, on charges of murder and other violent crimes.

U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf said in a statement that the sentence "sends a strong message to those who are willing to murder on behalf of a gang: Do so and you risk spending the rest of your life in prison."

Federal prosecutors are becoming more aggressive in going after members of MS-13, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, a gang made up largely of immigrants from Central America that has an estimated 10,000 members in the United States.

It is considered the largest street gang on Long Island, prosecutors said.